OUR Beer expertS

​Female members of several brewing and developmental teams to come down and hang out with us for the day. There will be a bunch of beers to try and a chance ​to discuss women in the brewing industry.

J. WAKEFIELD BREWING

MARIA CABRE | BREWER

In 2014, Maria Cabré traded her seven-year career as an accomplished pastry chef for a new career as a craft beer brewer at ​J. Wakefield Brewing.

A graduate of Johnson & Wales University, Maria worked as a pastry chef at two iconic Miami-area resorts, the Fontainebleau Miami Beach and the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, as well as Amy’s Bread and The Modern in New York City. After her daughter was born, Maria was looking for more reasonable hours than those of the restaurant business and for a new challenge.

She met Johnathan Wakefield, through a mutual friend, and asked him to teach her how to brew craft beer. Wakefield was an award-winning home brewer and was planning the opening of his now-popular Wynwood brewery and taproom. Maria already had a appreciation for craft beer, ever since her first Weihenstephaner Hefeweissbier. She’d even done some home brewing herself, a few years before.

Johnathan was impressed with Maria’s eagerness to learn a new craft, her attention to detail and precision, which was already well-established from her days as a pastry chef.

Maria doesn’t care much for her designation as South Florida’s first female brewer, “If you are kick-ass,” she shrugs, “then you are kick-ass, regardless of whether you are male or female.”